


Wake Up

by ashford2ashford



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Blood, Experimentation, Gore, Graphic surgery, M/M, awake during surgery, engineer/spy hinted at, general violence, graphic depictions of organs and blood, metal into flesh, robots ripping things apart, wires and blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-17 17:39:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3538283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashford2ashford/pseuds/ashford2ashford
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That Spy had been a thorn in Grey Mann's side for so long...<br/>He'd sabotaged everything, made the robot war slow to a crawl, and had made sure that those damn mercenaries survived.<br/>There was not a price he wasn't willing to pay to get him. <br/>Now that he had him, though...he was determined to make him suffer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wake Up

**Author's Note:**

> An AU where the Mercs all hole themselves up in various bases during the Robot War - MVM setting - and one single Spy acts as communication between the bases. 
> 
> You're also about to find out how Spy Robots are made...
> 
> Please enjoy.

“Wake up, sunshine.”

His head hurt. His teeth hurt. Everything from the neck up hurt. A lot.

Anything below the neck?

Agonising.

He barely registered the sound of a Texan drawl before consciousness was swept away from him once more.

===

“C’mon now…wake up.”

When the Spy cracked open his eyes once more, everything felt numb. The world swam in a blurred haze, and – try as he might – he found he could not reach up to wipe away the water from his vision. Shapes moved around him, distorted and almost otherworldly in their nature, flickering in the corners and twisting in and out of the mass of colour that he was trying to desperately make sense of. 

Something touched his face, moved over his eyes, and then everything was clear. The colour and the shapes faded and it was then the Spy realised that everything was so dull and grey around him. A basement of some sort (perhaps a laboratory?) with wires and cables and half smelted metal thrown off to one side. Everywhere he looked there was light, painful to his newly restored vision, and oh so warm against his skin. Already he could feel himself starting to sweat; a headache forming. Computers registered strange data that he could not understand, and could barely read, around him. Everything seemed so new and terrifying and…

Were those…limbs?

Panic set in as wide azure orbs took in the horrific sight of body parts left abandoned on tables and various organs floating in jars of fluid. Blood coated steel tables with tight leather restraints attached to ankles that no longer has owners, or bloodied stumps that used to end in hands. Along the wall, wires and cables fed a constant supply of energy to metallic limbs that twitched and writhed as though attempting to tear themselves from their perches and find a host to use them. 

Somewhere in the shadows that fell around the steady beams of light, something moved in a jerking and erratic manner; pulling apart what the Spy hoped to every God he could was a metal endoskeleton. Bright lights that gleamed a sickening red told the Frenchman that this was one of Grey Mann’s infamous Medi-bots. A foul parody of the man upon which they were based. Gloves and medi-guns attached by bolts and wires. A single wheel in place of the boots that the Medics always prided themselves on. Intended purely to heal, their only driving function, but still enough to horrify any mercenary to the core in their warped frame. 

The Medi-bot ignored him, thankfully, but the shape that had been so close before spoke once again, “You awake now, boy?”

Something seemed to clog the Spy’s throat, and he found that he could not reply, only utter a mere gurgle in response to the question asked.

It seemed purely rhetorical as the voice went on, “The Doc asked me to keep y’all awake for the next part’a the procedure. Seem alla ya Spies accept your fate once you see and feel the next part. Personally, I just like watching those intelligent eyes fade to black. Makes a man feel real powerful you know?”

Next part? What next part? 

The Spy supposed that he would be informed of this shortly, but idle thoughts did nothing to reassure him. 

There was movement to the side of him, and the Spy physically felt his entire body slide and catch on metal restraints as the table he had apparently been lay on was winched upwards to a standing position. His wide eyes glanced upon the full-length mirror before him, allowing him to see, for the first time, the state his body was in.

If he could have screamed, he would have. 

Loudly.

His chest had been completely ripped open, every organ exposed to the inquiring eyes of whomever so desired to see them, and there was a metal tube that was forcibly inflating his lungs for him jutting out of his throat. His organs were wired up to machines that were clearly keeping them going, he could even see the fluid running in and out of tubes going to and from his prone form. 

Well…what was left of it...

Most of the bone was exposed on his arms and legs and hips, the flesh nowhere to be found, yet oh so clearly surgically removed. He could assume that the tubes attached to his wrists and chest and ankles were concoctions of anaesthesia and pain killers, for he surely would have felt pain from the fact that everything below his waist had been skinned alive. The only things he could see that even contained flesh were his wrists, yet even they had been unable to escape the claws of experimentation. 

His invisibility watch was now firmly attached to his arm, through his flesh, by a series of wires that – oh god – he could clearly see running through the muscle of the twitching limb. On his other hand, a bastardisation of the disguise kit; he could clearly see the dials and numbers that were reminiscent of the Spy-tech screen that he had been used to using and seeing every single day he stepped out on field. That too was attached to his arm in a similar manner to the watch. 

It should have hurt. 

He’d felt it hurt before.

Now everything was numb. Detached. Unresponsive. Dead.

A low gurgle in the tube down his throat spoke volumes of his urge to panic and cry. Already he could feel tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. 

Softly, in an almost patronising manner, the hand that belonged to the voice pet his hair, and finally the body belonging to said hand stepped into view. 

An Engineer. 

God knows what colour he once was. His overalls were stained with dirt and grease and blood, but they belonged to neither RED nor BLU. Clearly someone who had left one of them and had come to work for Grey. It was not unheard of. Medics and Spies had been known to do exactly the same in the past few years since the hellish Robot War began.

This Engineer looked like he took great pride and pleasure in his work, and what had happened to the Spy was most certainly a shining example of what it was that Grey paid him to do. The Spy was still unsure of the details of this…abhorrent act of inhuman cruelty, but he was definitely sure that the Engineer had masterminded - and had experienced joy from doing - it. 

Without a cue to speak, the Engineer chuckled to himself in low tones as he started to check over every pipe and attachment jutting out from the Spy’s carcass. 

“I’ve been dyin’ to git mah hands on you, boy. You have no idea. You been givin’ us all kindsa hell here at Grey Gravel. Sabotage. Information gatherin’ for those teams still left alive. Sidin’ with both RED and BLU to make this war as bloodless as possible. Shoot. You got a record a mile long here, Spah.”

In earnest, the Spy supposed he was right. When the respawn system had all but shut down during the first waves, he had gone from Teufort to Gravel Pit, from Dustbowl to Pipeline, and so on and so forth, until he was sure that every single member of RED and BLU knew about it. He was a well-respected Spy, a consummate professional that got the job done, and knew the best course of action to take in most scenarios. He had stayed in touch with the twin Spies of the Badlands, rendezvoused with the BLU Spy of Teufort, and had aided the RED Spy of Pipeline with the evacuation of both RED and BLU when the robots had overrun it. 

When the robots had attacked and people started dying, for real this time, he had worked quickly and quietly for three whole years to ensure that fortifications were locked down and all mercenaries within were protected. 

Then Grey had sent his own men round to try and set a trap for him. 

“You were harder than steel, you know? We thought you was damn near untouchable. Grey was losin’ his last strands of hair over you, you know? Disappearin’ in Teufort only to reappear in Nucleus. Jumpin’ from place to place with a seemingly random pattern. Good thing one of the Engineer robots noticed that you visited the stronghold at Mann-hatten more times than the others. We’d have never been able to catch ya if y’all had torn that particular robot apart. You done got sloppy.”

How foolish that the heart that now required a machine to keep it beating had led to his downfall. 

That Engineer at the stronghold, the RED one with the smiling eyes and the optimistic attitude – those lips, that tongue, those hands that dug into his hips and pulled him close, and – had been his weakness; his Achilles heel. The minute they had met there had been some connection between him and the stout labourer. A need for company that both of them required. Long years of remaining professional, skilful, and dreadfully alone had formed an understanding that no one else could fathom. 

They both knew it was foolish to meet so often, had even joked about it with serious undertones, but neither could have dreamed, let alone imagined, that a BLU Scout - who wanted so dearly to go home and see his Ma and his brothers - would sell them both out to Grey Mann and aid in the Spy’s untimely demise.

A trap had been set. 

The base had been taken.

Barely any survivors.

Spy was not sure what had happened to the Engineer, but he was deeply saddened that his own fate had to play out this way.

The BLU Scout had been killed in the crossfire. The Spy knew that they never really intended to leave him alive. Too much of a liability. One who betrays will most certainly betray again when the tables tilt in his favour. Better to use and be rid of one as soon as possible. Spy knew that much from experience.

He had been so caught up in memories, the Spy almost forgot about the wicked, gleeful, sadistic Texan until his head was seized harshly in gloved hands. Those fingers beneath the material trembled with a twisted excitement. When he spoke, the Engineer sounded like he was trying to remain in control of himself and his actions; so ecstatic that he finally had the Spy in his grasp. The very same Spy who had given Grey so much trouble in the space of three years.

“Lemme let y’all in on a little secret there, Spah. You know that expensive equipment you wear? That little invisi-watch doo-hickey and that there disguise kit? Well, to a robot, that shit is damn near worthless.”

Spy had to confess that he was a little intrigued by that statement, in a morbid kind of manner. He had seen Spy robots with his own eyes using all kinds of techniques like he himself used. They disguised and vanished and used all of the same arts and mastery that any Spy worth his salt would use. 

As the Engineer rummaged through pieces of metal and bits of wire, he continued, “The equipment requires a heat signature to function. A pulse. Somethin’ so painfully human. That wonderful part of human anatomy that – try as ah damn well might – ah just can’t seem to accurately replicate in a robot. An’ boy-oh-boy, believe me: I have tried everything over these past three years. So many chemicals and wires and flesh-like material. All leadin’ to sweet-diddly jack-shit. You have no idea how frustratin’ that is!”

Suddenly, much like the wires that ran in and out of his flesh, everything seemed to connect for the Spy. Everything seemed so clear now. Even as the Engineer continued, the Spy had flashes of the robots that stormed the bases purposefully seeking out the Spies within, capturing them, knocking them out, and dragging them away before anyone could stop them. For the first two years of the Robot War, there had been no Spy-bots. No fears of invisible enemies or obvious traitors. 

“Then one of the Engineerin’ team had a great idea...”

Then Spies had started to go missing; taken away during battles to never be seen again. 

After that, the Spy-bots appeared with their sharp knives and their skilled hands and their disguised faces. 

Even back then, the Spy had assumed that Spies were captured and killed for their technology. He couldn’t have ever imagined this. Most certainly not this. 

“Y’see, although ah can’t build a realistic human from scratch – certainly not for mass production purposes anyhow – ah can sure as hell wire up a human so that they become a perfect obedient robot.”

There was never any money in a Spy-bot. Only the thick oozing of oil and – blood – whatever else was inside it. No one ever went back for a second check. If they had done they would have found organs and blood and bone and muscle and…

“The better the Spy; the better the Spy-bot. Once your brain is all hardwired up to be Grey’s little obedient servant, you’ll be mah greatest creation. You outran, dodged, and snuck around for three whole years, movin’ virtually undetected. All of your previous records on both RED and BLU show that you were more or less top of your field. You’ll be the best thing I ever created.”

Two glassy orbs were placed in front of the Spy’s face, “Now how do you think these look? Perfect for your new eyes, right? Only the best for what is soon to be mah favourite toy.”  
Anything in front of the Spy became blurry. His vision swam and his head throbbed and he could barely blink away the tears that had started to fall thick and fast down his face. That low gurgling from an open throat was a poor substitute for the internal screeching that the Spy felt as a tremble through the very foundations of his soul.

As though summoned via sheer terror, the Medi-bots whirred to life from beyond the pools of light, the mirror reflecting the horror of their procedures. Metal was strapped and twisted and bent around everything that passed for a piece of skeleton. Even as the wires were connected to internal computers that had been forcibly inserted into muscle and his open chest cavity, the Spy could not stop crying. 

Everything had been bent to form somewhat of a bastardisation of a Spy’s suit, metallic shoes forced around every single joint within his foot and connected to other parts of him with more wires, trousers formed in layers of plate to allow for flexibility, and metal sprayed black for his fingers and hands, mocking his gloves. 

More muscle was torn away in this procedure, leaving several areas made up entirely of bone and metal, to form the thin and lithe structure of a Spy-bot. It seemed that they were saving most of the ‘human’ parts for the use of the spy-tech equipment.

The torment seemed to last forever.

Albeit not painful in the slightest, but exceptionally traumatising to watch. 

Already the Spy could imagine how it would feel to have his shoulder blades popped out and pulled upwards as the Medi-bots worked on his upper body. 

The tears had not stopped. Not once.

His cheeks felt so sore and red.

Finally, after what seemed like days – it had certainly been hours at the very least – the Medi-bots left their soon-to-be comrade alone with the Engineer and with time to contemplate his new body. It looked as flawless as every other robot’s body. A mockery of the three piece Italian suits that the Spies often wore – complete with a bolted on tie – with a fully equipped disguise kit and invisi-watch. 

The Engineer slid into view in the mirror behind him, wiping away tears and the ever-present blur with a rag, leaving an oily smear on the Spy’s face. From his smile, it was obvious what was left to do. Hands gripped the Spy’s hair tightly, a low chuckle indicating that his humanity had all but run out. 

“You’re gonna look so pretty. Gonna be so obedient. I can’t wait to see you on the field. Killin’ everyone y’all ever loved or cared about. Especially that Engineer. God damn his little toys have been givin’ us trouble. Heh. Not for long, eh?”

That flicker of hope in the Spy’s chest was surely artificial, but it most certainly was hope nonetheless. It was good to know. Good to know that his Engineer (mon amour) was still alive.

A soft laugh as the Engineer’s voice dropped to a low purr, “Will y’all sap his toys an’ then slit his throat? Will y’all be a good toy for me an’ bring me back his head? ‘Course you will. You won’t even be human once me an’ the Doc have played around with that brain of yours. We’re both gonna enjoy this.”

With one swift motion, the Engineer forced the tip of a needle into what was left of the Spy’s flesh and pressed down hard, sending anaesthetic coursing through the remaining veins. 

As his vision started to turn and spin, and delve into the deepest darkest oceans of unconsciousness, the Spy remembered his Engineer. He remembered those he had helped for the past three years. Every triumph and every failure. Every cheer and every scream. He remembered that the good times had always outweighed the bad times, and that his line of work had been something that he had never regretted. He remembered France and the smell of home-baked bread, and he remembered holding his father’s hand tightly as the old man – his rock, his support – breathed his last breath. 

Most of all, he remembered the satisfaction.

For the past three years, he had been a wanted man, someone that had caused all of Grey’s robots to take time to pause and give thought to where they would attack, someone that had caused Grey’s Engineers and Medics to curse and damn his very name; his very existence. He had single-handedly helped well over a hundred people to stay alive despite all odds and he was proud of it.

He felt the wires being inserted into his brain, felt everything start to fade and vanish from his life, and he felt proud of the path he had walked.

As the Spy’s humanity died, it did so with the most satisfied smile on its face.


End file.
